Just what they needed

Features - Case Study

The Whippoorwill Club in Armonk, N.Y., has a long, rich history dating back to the 1920s. Envisioned as a sprawling "fine, dignified, proprietary club colony" encompassing 850 acres and catering to the wealthy during the Roaring 20s, it finally broke ground in the 1929 – just in time for the Great Depression.

The club stayed afloat and eventually prospered. Like most classic courses, it has been renovated and updated a number of times and regularly makes it on several "best" lists. However, there was one challenge that left architects, managers and players frustrated. And that had nothing to do with golf.

The course was built before there was a local sewer system. "We are not on the municipal system in this part of Westchester County," says Jeffry Martocci, CCM, the club’s general manager.

Because the course lies in a watershed for New York City, with updated laws and regulations it was impossible to expand sewer or septic services. When the course was initially designed and laid out, remote restrooms were unheard of.

"Our options were limited; there wasn't a lot we could do. We had a concrete vault with a toilet that we pumped out," says Paul Gonzalez, superintendent at the course since 2006. "It was awful."

The facility – or lack of – was a constant member complaint. "At our annual meeting in 2013, it was brought up as a formal issue and I agreed to do some further research and see what we could do," says Gonzalez. That year, the Golf Industry Show was in San Diego, and Gonzalez was on a mission.

"I was looking into every option I could find," Gonzalez recalls. "Nothing would have satisfied the members. When I saw the Green Flush restrooms on the show floor, I thought they would be typical of what I had seen before. The company owners were talking to someone, so I went in and looked around the display model. And it ended up being exactly what I needed."

First of all, in spite of the fact that the restrooms are not plumbed, the toilets flush. Plus, they also offer sinks and separate urinals. However, they also use 90 percent less water than conventional restrooms and are easy to keep sparkling clean and odor free.

The prefabricated buildings have a unisex bathroom plus a mechanical room with a water tank. Water for flushing the toilet can also be captured and recycled from the sink, which also offers a hot water option. In addition, there is an option for rainwater capture and storage for toilet flushing. Interior and exterior lights are another option, with solar or rechargeable batteries available where electrical power is not available.

The toilet flushes directly into a sealed tank beneath the floor, keeping odors nonexistent. Because it only takes about a quart of water per flush, pumping is only required every few weeks or even months.

Installation was no problem, as the units come completely assembled and ready to set. "We had a very large front-end loader," Gonzalez says. "You just pick them up off the truck, hook up the battery and start using them." There are larger, multi-stall units that require a crane, but single units are easily installed without needing special labor or equipment.

Because Gonzalez simply replaced the existing vault toilets, the area was partially prepped. He laid an 8-inch base of gravel and did a bit of landscaping, including steps and a ramp to the small building.

"The biggest challenge was probably getting the members to learn how to use it," Martocci laughs. "But that was actually very easy – it's not that complicated!"

The cost was only a negligible amount more than typical vault toilets.

"When all was said and done, each unit cost us about $35,000," Martocci says. The club was so pleased by the first unit on the fifth hole that they installed a second unit on the 13th hole shortly thereafter.

Trust your people, trust your process

Columns - Design Concepts

I started writing this column a decade ago with the hope it would lead to renovation commissions. While there’s “street cred” attributable to this magazine, only a few commissions have resulted. What has happened, at a ratio of over 10 to 1, are calls for free advice. While I’m glad my columns have impact, they can’t substitute for the work your green committee and/or architect, superintendent or consulting agronomists have put in to your unique problems.

Nor can I offer good advice from a distance. Much like doctors who insist on an office visit for my October allergies, I would need to see it first hand to diagnose ills and give good architectural advice, especially when some differences of opinion possible revolve around club politics. As an architect, I’ve been in the middle of some contentious renovations and have seen small factions of club memberships try to call in another architect for a “second opinion.” It rarely helps solve the problem.

In one case, dissenting club members cited one of my earliest articles to support the proposition of minimal change without any major re-routing of the existing course. They presented it as “proof from an expert who says you should never re-route your golf course.” After the architect, pro re-routing and pro no-change factions of the club contacted me, I re-read my article. I wrote that remodels without re-routing are generally less expensive than those that involve massive re-routing. While true, I did not say, however, that it was always the right thing to do.

The premise of that article was re-routing precludes saving many trees and any infrastructure, which is where the cost savings are. However, once analysis reveals (as it did at this club) that a course has major (and long deferred) infrastructure needs, and the master plan calls for totally new irrigation system, cart paths, and drainage, your big-ticket items are going to be replaced anyway. There are fewer savings to be had, and re-routing doesn’t add as much to the total cost, and can potentially yield substantially better results.

When I wrote that article, I had just secured a major renovation commission by virtue of a bigger name architect proposing a total re-routing while my proposal saved several holes, trees and money, winning me the job. No doubt, that affected my writing. However, problems like slice side safety, lack of length, some poor holes and/or no range can often only be solved with re-routing. It is almost always worth studying, at least as an option. My standard practice in master plans is to review any potential routing changes at the very beginning. Many of my renovations have had some re-routing, and a few were total re-routes.

In discussing this with all parties, via email and phone, I found the consulting architect at this club had 10 preliminary plans, from no re-routing up to the total reconfiguration for the club to consider, and the committee picked one of the re-routing plans.

A few members believed re-routing, infrastructure rebuilding and major design enhancements were unneeded and expensive. It’s a legitimate concern, and very common among older members.

It is rare that architects (or egotistic greens chairman) needlessly blow up a golf course to put their “stamp” on it. All clubs have cost constraints, committee structure and democratic processes as checks and balances to such “golf course abuse,” but that appears to be what these gentleman in opposition to the project believed was happening.

Ironically, had the opposition read my next column, they would have seen there are right and a wrong ways (and times) to achieve a difficult consensus. And their way – bringing in random outside opinions after the final vote to move forward – is the wrong way.

The master plan is a process. If followed correctly, and transparently, (which seems to have been the case here) it’s hard to believe a conscientious green committee and qualified architect would “miss the mark” as these members believed. They interviewed several architects, hired one whose method fit their needs, had him perform a thorough course needs analysis, provide varying, multiple preliminary plans, collaboratively refined the best one, and then voted as a committee. When you go through that methodical process, what are the chances reasonable people are all going to go awry? Very small... and you most likely will have the best master plan possible, despite some differing opinions.

This club’s “opposition” also proposed band aids to postpone major infrastructure spending. They are quick, easy and cheap, but rarely solve major problems. If you need it, you need it and well thought out comprehensive projects work better, and in the long run usually cheaper, even if costing more up front.

Deep down, most people know this, and yet, it is very common to endorse poor or partial fixes to save money. Say yes to value engineering a good plan, but no to a bad plan that cost less.

The circle of life

Columns - Nuts & Bolts

It is all part of the circle of (equipment’s) life (play “The Lion King” theme song as background here). To maintain the efficient operation of the golf course as a business, old equipment needs to be rotated out of the lineup and new equipment purchased to replace it. If equipment managers before you did not do this, your turf equipment would be horse drawn or steam powered. Now that you are your course’s equipment manager, it is up to you to continue the tradition of weeding your motor pool collection each year. Machines that have become uneconomical to keep need culled from the herd.

If you track individual equipment expenses (productivity, operator, maintenance, repair, fuel, shop costs and shop time), the machine itself will tell you when it needs replaced. The time and money spent maintaining and repairing each machine rises each year and at some point, will actually exceed what the payments on a new machine would be or before that may exceed the shop hours available. In the case where shop hours have been maxed out, the overflow hours have to be made up by hiring more shop people or farming the work out to other shops.

Yes, I know it is hard to put any machine out to pasture when “all it needs is a few more parts and some more time in the shop to keep it going,” but you have to draw the line somewhere. Are you running a golf course or are you restoring and maintaining antique machinery? Restoring antique machinery is a great personal joy, but does not make economic sense. At some point, the manufacturer will discontinue supplying parts for their old designs. When that happens you’ve kept that machine way too long.

The joy of spending company money

Uneconomical equipment needs to be replaced with the newest and best that the course can afford. Someone has to do it. If you do it right, it is a game that is a lot of fun. The game is to shop for the equipment with features that your course needs and get the best price you can, so you can buy more.

The more you know about the environment the equipment needs to fit into and the economics of it, the better you can do your job. For example, while the rough could be mowed with a $100 18-inch walk behind gasoline rotary mower, when all things are considered, it makes economic sense to do it instead with a $48,000 diesel fueled mower that cuts a 12-foot swath at about 9 mph.

Luckily, for those who play this game of buying for the course, the season for new product releases, conventions, and trade shows is just around the corner. This is where you kick the tires on all kinds of new equipment. Networking can do a lot to improve your game as a buyer. You have to learn it somewhere and continue to improve throughout your career.

The time and money spent maintaining and repairing each machine rises each year. At some point it will actually exceed what the payments on a new machine. Are you running a golf course or are you restoring and maintaining antique machinery?

Consider replacing 20 percent of your equipment list each year, or in the case of courses only open half the year, 10 percent of your equipment list each year. Some “low-mileage” equipment will last longer while high-usage equipment will need to be replaced more often. Some equipment ages by the calendar rather than by the engine hour meter.

We need a golf course museum

Columns - The Monroe Doctrine

I have been under a little heat lately. My successor is anxious for me to find a new home for my “antiques.” I want to comply, but I’m boxed in.

I don’t have a second home or a farmette where I could store things, my garage holds two cars only, and I simply cannot afford renting storage space. Soon my only alternative will be a junk yard.

What a shame. I’d love to donate all of my items and artifacts to a museum, a golf course museum. But, as far as I know, there isn’t such a thing. If there is, it is a well-kept secret. For a business/industry as formidable as golf course management, it doesn’t seem possible to lack a museum devoted to the long and rich history of turf management and machinery.

We are a country almost obsessed with museums. There are thousands and thousands of them, and even my hometown of about 2,000 in Southwest Wisconsin has two museums! When the subject comes up, most people think of the Smithsonian Museums, the Field Museum or the Museum of Science and Industry. But here, close to home, we have a cheese making museum, a National Dairy Shrine Museum and one devoted solely to Harley Davidson motorcycles. We have a beer museum close by and a circus museum even closer. Twice a year I visit the National Farm Toy Museum in Iowa, and even more often than that I visit the Veterans’ Museum across from the state capitol. You can visit museums dedicated to the various branches of the military – the Airborne Museum in North Carolina is my favorite among these – ethnic museums (Norwegian, Cornish and Scottish are my faves), and those dedicated to the arts.

It seems every profession has a museum somewhere in the country dedicated to preserving its heritage, history and artifacts. We also have major sports museums at Cooperstown, Canton, Springfield, Far Hills and Newport.

Golf has a wonderful museum at USGA headquarters, but its displays of golf course equipment have been sparse and infrequent. One time they had an excellent – albeit small – area with golf course maintenance in mind, and most of it belonged to Mel Lucas! I am going to visit again this fall and see if anything has changed.

As Vince Lombardi was given to frequently say, “What the hell is going’ on here?”

Some companies in our business have done an admirable job of collecting objects they designed and built and putting them on display. John Deere is the best example; you can spend the better part of a day in Moline visiting them, before driving east to Grand Detour, Ill., and seeing the original Deere foundry and his home at the time. But most of their wonderful collection revolves around plows, tractors and combines. Turf equipment is scarce.

Toro has done a wonderful job of saving some of its history, which we share in. Last year was the company’s 100th anniversary. Part of that celebration was the printing of a book of their history and the presentation of old machines in the headquarters building in Bloomington, Minn. But their devotion to company history is rare.

During a visit to the Turfgrass Information Center at Michigan State University this past summer, I asked Peter Cookingham about donating small items and printed materials. He was polite but mostly declined. “We have a shortage of space,” he said, “and we are a library, not a museum.”

Collections sit, collectors get old, and heirs have little or no interest in our collections.

What can we do with these artifacts of turf? The answer, of course, is to establish, develop and fund a golf course museum. Most museums start out as private collections, so the time is getting short before too much is lost. Years ago, I edited our chapter publication, The Grass Roots, and wrote a fictional piece in each issue under The Back Nine. Once I composed a story about a golf course museum in Wisconsin, had an engineer friend of mine develop blueprints for it and designed a floor plan of displays. There was lots of positive feedback, and one GCSAA staff person was in Chicago on business and contacted me for directions to get there.

I think interest is still high, many collectors are still around, and some veteran greenkeepers and superintendents who were active in the past are still alive. But the artifacts slowly disappear. I saw a machine for sale recently that I would have bought had a museum been in place. It was a Jacobsen Leaf Mill, a machine with golf course application. I’d never seen one before and wanted so badly to save it. But I couldn’t. It’s an often-repeated story.

Will we do anything before it is too late?

Ready for the turf’s reaction

Features - Sponsored Case Study

Converting to paspalum will help The Resort at Longboat Key Club solve its salinity issues. Relying on a critical relationship will help director of agronomy John Reilly handle any disease issues the change produces.

John Reilly’s official title at The Resort at Longboat Key Club in Sarasota, Fla., is director of agronomy. He might prefer something along the lines of partner with the environment. As much as he is committed to providing quality playing conditions for members and guests, he’s also dedicated to environmental stewardship.

Reilly is a minimalist when it comes to applying products to his golf course. Like the physician who believes in prescribing the lowest effective dosage of a pharmaceutical to deal with a patient’s illness, he takes the less-is-more approach to applying chemicals to his turf.

“We just try to create balance,” he says, “and look at it from the aspect of air, water and then the inputs that we use, i.e. nutrients, fungicides or whatever the case may be.”

Reilly notes the order in which those elements are listed is significant. “Are we giving the plants the right amount of sunshine and air?” he says. “Are we giving the plants the correct amount of water? And then, if we can’t change those things in our favor, then we obviously use the inputs necessary to grow, or to get rid of the disease, the pest or whatever the case may be.”

Reilly developed this philosophy at Rutgers University where he became enamored with the philosophies of Dr. William Albrecht, a renowned agronomist who had a long and distinguished career as a University of Missouri professor. Albrecht had an agricultural background but Reilly says the concepts he espoused are effective in the golf industry as well.

“I really became a believer in the approach to soil developed by William Albrecht,” he says. “If you work to create a certain balance in your soil and manage your air and water you can, in agriculture, increase yield. I know the way we manage turf on golf courses is a contrived, manipulated environment. I just try to maximize the natural checks and balances of Mother Nature before turning to manufactured inputs.”

At 15, Reilly took his first job at a golf course at historic Rolling Green Golf Club outside Philadelphia and worked there through college. He embarked on a career in social work, but his decision to enroll at Rutgers signaled a career change. He left Rutgers in 1999 with a soil science degree.

Before arriving at Long Boat Key in 2009, he worked at a number of clubs in Florida, most notably the Innisbrook Resort, where he served as superintendent of the renowned Copperhead Course and oversaw a renovation. Over the course of his career, he has been responsible for four grow-ins and two renovations.

At Long Boat Key, Reilly is responsible for 45 holes spanning 205 acres along the beach adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico just west of downtown Sarasota. Construction on the original 18, christened the Islandside Course, began in the late 1950s; it opened for play in 1962. Today, the original course is known as Links on Longboat. The Harbourside Course, consisting of three nines, was completed in 1984. Both courses were originally designed by William Byrd, but Ron Garl was commissioned to do a redesign of all 45 holes. The renovation is scheduled to be completed in 2016. Both courses feature a soil composition that is a blend of calcareous sand and shell.

The property is situated on a barrier island that, before the resort was built, served as a dump for the city of Sarasota. Unfortunately for Reilly, the area around the resort averages only about 24 inches of rainfall per year. He notes there has been more rain this year. He had recorded 33.5 inches of rain for the year through October, but the mainland had received double that amount.

The salinity issue led Reilly to make the decision four years ago to regrass both golf courses and replace his Bermudagrass (primarily 419 and Ormond with Tifdwarf greens) with Platinum Paspalum, a strain of grass developed for golf courses and sports facilities in warm climates. Platinum Paspalum was introduced to the market in 2007 and is used on golf courses in such diverse locales as Florida, Mexico, the Bahamas, Spain, China, Vietnam, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. It is also in use at Minute Maid Park, the home of baseball’s Houston Astros.

Most importantly, from Reilly’s point of view, Platinum Paspalum is renowned for its extremely high salt tolerance. It will thrive in soil irrigated with water containing more than 5,500 ppm of salt, making it ideal for a golf facility situated near the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, it can be used “wall-to-wall” on greens, tees, fairways and in rough areas.

As of this writing, the transition wasn’t quite complete. A total of 55 acres, encompassing the White Nine of the Harbourside Course, plus two ranges are still to be converted. All the greens have been completed, however.

Reilly notes utilizing a single variety of turfgrass throughout the entire playing area of the golf course offers some distinct advantages. “It’s a good thing, especially around the greens,” he says. “You don’t fight contamination. If you have a stressed area or an area that’s getting traffic, you can change the mowing height. A lot of times that’s all you need to do and you don’t need to change anything else.

“If there’s a back of a green where people come on and off, we can kind of move it in as a collar or the other way around. Or if there’s an area that would make the game more fun, we can mow it out as green and have a false front that we didn’t have before because we don’t have to change grass types.”

Once he made the decision to convert to Platinum Paspalum, he needed an effective fungicide.

“Preventative and curative fungicide use is a necessity with paspalum grass,” he says. “Our real disease pressure started when we planted paspalum grass on the courses. Paspalum certainly handles the salt stress better (than Bermudagrasses), but has a higher propensity for disease.”

When he arrived at Long Boat Key, Reilly found himself dealing with a fairy-ring issue due to the age and composition of Byrd’s original greens. But with the installation of paspalum, he had to contend with leaf spot, patch diseases and dollar spot, and needed a solution.

“John became very familiar with BASF’s plant-heath story,” Key says. “It kind of opened John’s eyes to the idea that there really is something to the plant-health claims that BASF is making.”

Preventative and curative fungicide use is a necessity with paspalum grass. while it handles salt stress well, it has a higher propensity for disease.

Reilly was drawn to the BASF product line because of the company’s passion for protecting the environment matches his own. “They label plant health as part of the design of their products,” he says. “So, if we’re looking at it from a health standpoint as opposed to a disease model, that made me lean toward BASF.”

Reilly and Key have worked together for three years now and have built a solid relationship. “I enjoy the accessibility and transparency of working with Chris,” Reilly says. “He understands my challenges, is always there to offer the latest research, and is a realist when it comes to the time and place for the BASF products.”

Reilly gets solid results from BASF products with relatively minimal input. “We can treat for the myriad of disease pressure and keep our inputs to a minimum, as well as our costs,” he adds. “What we all suffer from, I think sometimes, is the idea that ‘A little works and more is better.’ That’s the kind of thinking that can get things out of whack. I got response out of this nitrogen product, so I’m going to put more nitrogen down. I think many, many people have made those kinds of mistakes so we don’t have to any more. We all can suffer from being an overwaterer, which also can lead to disease pressure. At other times, we can suffer from our egos and take our greens to the edge by lowering heights of cut and shutting off the water to increase green speed and firmness.”

As he heads into the peak of his 2015-16 season, Reilly’s turf concerns remain, including fairy ring, which has reappeared. But he’s confident that BASF has provided him with the tools to ward off problems.

“If you had talked to me 10 years ago, I’d have tried to tell you, ‘I’m an organic farmer that’s a golf course superintendent,’” Reilly says. “Now I would say I seek the ideal balance between maximizing playability for our members and guests while sustaining plant health.”

Rick Woelfel is a Philadelphia-based writer and a frequent GCI contributor.